9/11/2010 Burn a Koran Day

[sirkickyass]

I other words, you just don't want to accept that answer.

No. My question was about the distinction between "simulating" and "performing" the ceremony publicly. You answered by conflating the two. That's why you got a sigh. Your answer demonstrated that you either didn't understand the question or are purposely being dense about it because you don't know the answer but don't want to admit as much. It's also possible that there is some combination of the two.

You've not engaged the question at all. You're just finding new ways to write the same thing. Similarly you're not engaged at all in the ceremony vs. tokens and signs question.

Being upset over something and stopping someone from doing something are two completely things. You still didn't answer my question. If anything, you avoided it in a snotty nose, know-it-all type of a way.

Archie, my answer is that I don't understand why an Islamic person would be upset about a non-Islamic person drawing a picture of Muhammed either. That's not avoiding the question, that's telling you that I don't know the answer nor do I understand the motivation for trying to constrain others from violating your personal moral code.

As to the snottiness of the response: that's because I took a position on that exact question earlier in the thread. You may note you employed the exact same tone to Darkwing for the purported exact same reason.

 

[sirkickyass]

Now we're getting somewhere.

Here's why "because God said so" is an unacceptable answer. Well, let's not use "unacceptable" because of the absolute connotation. Let's use problematic.

Kicky is looking for the reasoning the church has told its members as a whole to find specific "thing" (by that I mean any particular item, event, etc.) as wholly inclusive and offensive to be shown to non-believers or even portrayed to those not of the faith. There are many "things" in every religion considered sacred that, when replicated either as an item or recreation of an event, is not considered offensive in any way. "God says so" comes across as arbitrary and as a conclusion to answer. What possible reason would there be for God to even consider making such a "thing" offensive. What purpose is there for it?

Now the response I would expect to this would be that you have no intention of questioning "God's will." The problem with that is that religious leaders have been interpreting meaning from perceived religious deities since the beginnings of any particular religion, in Christianity's case, people like Ambrose and Augustine and the apostles and such. Why can't you do that? Why has the church told you that God has seemingly told the founders of the church (or maybe it wasn't always deemed to be offensive within the church; if that's the case, why did it become offensive?) that this event, when recreated and seen by people not fully engrossed in that religion, became offensive. If you only want to reply with the company line, that's fine, but of course that's perceived as quite the underwhelming and unsatisfactory answer.

In short, kicky wants an etic answer to his question, rather than an emic one. It's perhaps too much to ask someone to do such a thing. Asking to do so is like asking a Vanuatu why they have their boys tower jump and being unsatisfied with the answer being, "it makes them men" and not getting any further on subsequent questioning.

This is pretty accurate. I would say that I'm also looking at testing the boundaries of what is offensive.

To that end I've posited two questions:

1) If the prohibition is on "performing" the ceremony publically, why does that render "demonstrations" or "simulations" with no actual religious significance offensive?

2) The formal penalties portion of the ceremony applied to the revealing of "tokens and signs" rather than everything else about the ceremony; seemingly implying that portion of the ceremony is the "secret" part. Is showing the entire ceremony offensive or is it just the tokens and signs that are offensive?

Think of #2 as being similar in form, for example, to precisely the edge that South Park tried to skirt by depicting Mohammad inside a U-Haul or a bear suit and showing only the outside container. At what level of abstraction from the text of the prohibition does something become inoffensive?

 

[NAOS]

I would say that I'm also looking at testing the boundaries of what is offensive.

Careful with that one, dude. Even the tragically hip and hyper-masculine types around here will turn on you. Hell, you're a moderator, you know this is a conservative place when the chips are down.

Also, I know kicky said something about this earlier on, but if you actually follow Big Love (that is, if you know the significance and the emotional timbre of the scene) I think you would have found the temple scene to be done with a very keen artistic eye. This wasn't South Park. The significance of family and salvation were right at the forefront. I thought it was well done. But, as is well documented above, I hate moralizing through representations of any kind...